Nacho Eating Contest "News" "Coverage"

Frequently when looking for a nacho story to cover I go to the ol’ google alerts for nachos and see what turns up. Sorting through the “recent” hot nacho news I came across a little story about a nacho eating contest. Then I read it. And reread it. And then thought to myself, “Really, is this the best we can do?”

WXXV25 is the local FOX affiliate out of South Mississippi, servicing both Biloxi and Gulfport and from the looks of it a real TV station. You can imagine my shock when this was the article my nachos google alert brought me to. See if you can see any issues here:

https://www.wxxv25.com/2018/02/26/nacho-eating-contest/

If you didn’t notice, let me lay a few things not mentioned out for you:

1 - What kind of nachos were served?

2 - How many pounds did the winner consume?

3 - Who were the runners up and how much had they eaten?

4 - What were the weigh ins?

5 - Was there a victory speech? Was Ignacio Anaya thanked?

6 - Were there any famous IFOCE members in attendance? “Crazy Legs” Conti? Eric "Badlands" Booker? Richard "the Locust" LeFevre?

7 - Who was the announcer of this event, and why was it not Richard Shea?

8 - What is a “Margaretville Restaurant”?

Where’s the description of the sights, the sounds, and the smells? I may have only taken one journalism class in college, and purple may be my favorite color of prose, but this is the best you can do? I don’t need you to go full on Hunter S. Thompson on the ‘72 campaign trail, but really, are you proud of this? It’s almost as if a computer wrote this out of a few better articles…

And really there are two better articles about this event, on the very same website even! Some with video and actual quotes from the attendees! So why would WXXV make two actual articles, but then also put up an abbreviated garbage version that google might link to and get the reader to riled up that they angrily write a whole post about it? We will never know.

The joke here is acting as though the info on the nachos consumed was the most important thing about the event, and disregarding the fact that it was for a police officer that was killed in the line of duty. That’s satire. The fact that an actual source of journalism just mentions that in passing without little info of how it went is the actual problem with the news these days. You don’t need to be Nellie Bly getting yourself locked up in an insane asylum for 10 days, but you do need to give us the facts that matter. Like how many pounds of nachos were consumed. Come on folks, you can do better.